


When You Come To Me

by softyellowlight



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hand Kink, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Holding Hands, Season/Series 08, Secret Crush, Shirtless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 12:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18521437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softyellowlight/pseuds/softyellowlight
Summary: Since Gendry arrived in Winterfell, Arya has been unable to stop herself from visiting the big, beautiful bull-headed boy every day at his forge (for increasingly thin reasons). She doesn’t think he will ever be able to see her for who she is now and understand how she feels about him, so if that’s the case, she’s gonna bloody enjoy looking at him shirtless. (He’s far smarter than most people think, though.)





	When You Come To Me

**Author's Note:**

> Set after their delightful reunion in Episode 1 of Season 8. This is my first GOT fic and my first story in YEARS so please be kind and leave feedback in the comments, if you like! I’m also not sure how long it will be and the rating might go up so thank you for your understanding :) 
> 
> Title is a line from the gorgeous Tim Baker’s song Hideaway on his brand new album Forever Overhead:
> 
> “Show yourself to me  
> Don’t you hide away anything  
> Just be real with me  
> Just reveal what it is you’re thinking  
> I’m not afraid  
> Of your sins and your skeletons, babe  
> I will not wince or back away  
> When you come to me”

Arya couldn’t help it. Since Gendry had arrived in Winterfell, she kept finding reasons to visit him at the forge. She’d tried at first to stay away and keep him out of her mind but frustratingly it appeared that Gendry wasn’t something she could ignore. Stupid bloody bull-headed Gendry who seemed to get taller and broader and more rugged and beautiful every time she looked at him, and who kept making her laugh (and not just laugh but fucking _giggle_ ). She couldn’t help it! Gods, she didn’t _want_ to keep going down there. Not every day, at least. But, she supposed, at one point she hadn’t been sure if she would ever see Gendry again so initially she could say she was making up for lost time. But now, she couldn’t _stop_. Once a day, twice a day, three or four times she would visit him. It made her feel... girly and dumb and helpless, which were all things she was absolutely _not_ , thank you very much, and yet. It was like there was a powerful magnet buried deep in her heart that was drawn to all the metal in his forge. Drawn to the iron in his blood, perhaps.

Sometimes she would go to check up on how the weapon she had requested was coming along. Sometimes she would take new sketches and schematics for other kinds of weapons and tools she imagined would be useful in various ways once the War enveloped everything. Sometimes she was relaying a message from Jon or Davos, doing a stocktake of the firewood supply, or popping in to quickly warm her hands by the blazing fire after a particularly cold horseback ride. Her favourite reason had become to deliver Gendry a tray of lunch or supper when she believed he wouldn’t have left the forge all day and must be starving, or (and she’d kill you before admitting this) whenever something particularly dark and needy filled her body and she wanted to watch his pretty mouth as he licked his lips after swallowing a spoonful of stew, or see his long, rough, skilful fingers hungrily tearing apart a bread roll. Gods, how she liked his hands! Again, she desperately wished she didn’t feel this way because it seemed fragile and ditzy, but Arya would practically melt any time she would pass Gendry something (a hammer or tongs or a cloth or whatever he asked for when she happened to be nearby) and his hand would touch hers. She could swear sometimes his fingers would linger on hers just a moment longer than they needed. That couldn’t be the case, of course. It was impossible, he’d known her too many years. How could he ever think of her as anything other than the dirty little kid he’d originally met? (Even though she was definitely a grown woman now, and very much in her element, home in Winterfell. Being ‘Arry’ was a troublesome feeling she couldn’t shake.) 

Gendry _was_ always smiling at her though - beaming, even. Arya supposed he probably smiled at everyone like that but nevertheless, whenever he would turn his lovely face towards her, with his rosed cheeks wide and joyfully crinkled eyes shining, despite the soot, Arya felt so warm and bright inside - it was better even than the sun over Braavos on a fine summer’s day. Speaking of that southern city, Arya had half-heartedly considered on more than one occasion the possibility of using a different Face so that she could watch Gendry more, spend more time around him without hindering his work or, worse, inevitably pissing him off. Maybe with another Face (a pretty Face, soft and delicate, with long flowing hair) she could even get him to fall in love with her, she had thought in her weakest moments. But of course, she would never dare. She wasn’t No One anymore. She’d left all that behind (unless potentially one day it was an absolute matter of life and death, it had to be said). She did miss Braavos a little sometimes though, and occasionally would catch herself dreaming about eating oysters by the salty turquoise sea, and if perchance Dream Arya was often sharing those vinegar-splashed shellfish with a certain strong and kind blacksmith (on a honeymoon maybe, or a sweet little holiday before a baby arrived) well... the subconscious mind was a daft beast and it didn’t mean a damn thing. 

She would always be a true Northern girl, of course. And she would always be suited to the cold climate. Gendry, on the other hand, was not. The whistling winds and sparkling snow had not become his close companions yet, like they had been hers for life. In short, this meant Gendry always had on far too many clothes for Arya’s taste. Not like when they’d been young and far from Winterfell and she’d seen him all shirtless and sweaty and first wanted to get her hands on his abs and his chest and his... everything. Something _had_ to be done, she decided to herself one afternoon, as she sat perched on a large anvil while Gendry finished up the dagger he was working on, or she was going to go mad. (Or, madder than presently, at any rate.) If she couldn’t have him, she thought, if she couldn’t be his girl ( _if_ _he would never love her back_ , it boiled down to) then she could at least at least create some amusement, have a little fun, take her mind off the constant impending darkness and devastation. A harmless challenge... getting him shirtless again.


End file.
